Bringing the Words Back With Him
by daringu
Summary: Ed post-series and his thoughts on his experiences, his father, and Al.


**Title**: Bringing the Words Back With Him   
**Author**: daringu   
**Spoilers**: ep.51   
**Notes**: I have issues with Hoenheim as he's explicated in the anime. I have issues with Ed forgiving him rather quickly. I have issues with his behavior at the end of the series. I have especial issues with the Roy-Hoenheim comparison in that episode for multiple reasons. Just so you know. 

Written for kittu9's challenge. prompt: "The journey back should be easy; if this reaches you, wait for me."

* * *

Nineteen, long blonde hair tied back into a high ponytail, a false arm of jointed wood, golden eyes that everyone asked about and he in return assured them that they were contacts with an uneven smile: this was Edward Elric in the Time Past, or the Other World, or Beyond the Gate. He might have answered an inquisitor which of the three titles was the true one if asked, but the only one who would ever know enough to ask here was his father. He certainly wouldn't tell that "old man" anything beyond a command to move out of his face. Quickly. Now. Do It, Old Man. 

He wrote down his thoughts, notes, experiences in a spiral-bound plain notebook that he placed under his rough cotton-covered pillow every night. With one hand underneath the pillow he slept: uncomfortable as it was, it prevented the old man from reading the notes. There wasn't anything within them that was particularly horrific or insulting, but he recounted events in them as he saw them and felt them, with truth and honesty and probably bad spellings. Because of that the notebook was personal and private beyond belief, moreso even than his alchemical notes on now-yellowing paper in Amestris.

Curly and messy became his handwriting over time, sprawling all over the page, much different from his notes in Amestris. The other notes were in a blocked, controlled handwriting that never went beyond the margins of the page and described his alchemical findings in cold codes of Pinako and Winry's automail-working habits. It was appropriate that his handwriting changed in response to an exile in a world that was, to him, devoid of color, warmth, and most of all alchemy.

_(the streets of munich)_  
The streets of Munich pressed up against his shoes, into his socks and onto two flesh feet. Walking had never lost its joy since the first day he had blindly stumbled through the thronged crowds, the sun high in the sky, looking for vestiges of anything and anyone that he knew. Those people he stopped and blindly asked about Hoenheim Elric could only half-understand his speech; the German of Amestris was only similar in grammar and structure to the German spoken here. He ran through the streets, adrenaline and grey buildings flashing past him, until he was stopped by a hand; he looked up, and there was the old man with an expression of bewilderment and shock.

He still didn't understand the theory as to why he does not have to bear a physical representation of half of his sin anymore; you've broken equivalent trade, you paid the price through effort, Hoenheim said. Edward had thought on the contradictory statement for hours and hours, not ever reaching a conclusion while stretched on the worn couch, or while eating a dinner of cheese and bread and wine, or while in the slightest thoughts before sleep.

Or while walking through the street on an afternoon when the sun shone but the air was crisp, feeling the stones of the street through both his worn shoes. Because of that, he could not hate this world.

_(winry)_  
"Good afternoon, sir," said the smartly-uniformed postmaster, with an air of ritual.

Edward nodded in reply, and the postmaster turned, running his white-gloved finger along the equally-spaced postboxes. He reached an "E", continued more slowly, and stopped at a post-box labeled "Elric". The postbox was stuffed full of letters and envelopes of all sizes and shapes.

"All since yesterday," the postmaster said, sliding the pile out of the box. He set them on the counter in front of Edward, who attempted to cram all of them in one hand and failed, spilling them all over the counter again.

Edward missed the tangy smell of metal even though he had loathed it before because it had reminded him of what he had lost. He had loathed the feel of it and by association, sometimes, the automail mechanic who lovingly crafted the parts he wore.

"If you love automail so much, why don't you cut off one of your own legs and wear it yourself!" he had screamed at her, one day, when her squealing about how wonderful his automail had drove him to the edge. She had stopped adjusting the screw in it that had come loose, what he called the psychotic automail-fancier glow had left her eyes, and she just looked sad. He had turned his head, still angry, and stormed out of the room.

Now: he had a double reminder of his failings. The irony.

"Do you need a bag? I can loan you one," the postmaster said, hesitantly. The Elrics were frequent customers on the sending and receiving end, from and to isolated cities all across the globe.

He smiled and denied the postmaster graciously, gathering up several of the packages and holding them in his mouth. With some in his mouth, he could barely manage with the rest. He ran home with his teeth and fingers clenched on the precious information, his false arm flung behind him and slightly hindering his speed.

_(on fathers)_  
"You have your hair like mine, now," Hoenheim said. The younger Elric his hand and mouthful of packages and letters on their scuffed kitchen table.

Edward grinned. "It's not because of you. This arm," and he raised the monstrosity slightly with effort from his shoulder, the only movement he could ever force it to do, "-can't help me tie a ponytail."

"Oh," the man was disappointed for the merest second. "I could help you tie a ponytail."

"Certainly no," Edward said, laughing partially out of spite of that man, and partially out of a denial to think that there was ever an Edward Elric that had a long braid and automail. Automail that with a single clap, flash, rearrangement of particles could be re-forged into a sword that whistled as it swung through the air. That Edward Elric had a braid and a pocketwatch that identified him as a National Alchemist.

With the pocketwatch came an annoying commander in blue who set things on fire and his pack of cronies, vaguely connected to a commander with an eyepatch who now might be dead. The Colonel could be dead too, Edward reasoned to himself, but honestly, the man was too annoying and too stubborn to die.

He always kept an eye out for a familiar mop of black hair and smirk anyway. Just in case.

_(disillusionment)_  
"Disillusionment is a part of growing up," Hoenheim said. "Your original theory of equivalent trade is broken and null. There's your disillusionment."

"You're full of shit," replied Edward, and continued reading.

_(fairy tales)_  
Maybe, Edward thought as he scoured some of Einstein's notes, flopped vertical and on his belly on the couch with notes sprawled out in front of him, when the old man grows up and begins to understand someone other than himself, that's when he'll begin to age. Even in this world, Hoenheim stayed an eternal thirty years with his straight posture and golden hair without a strand of grey. Ed was sure legends and fables were to be created out of this situation, to enthrall and frighten little children for decades to come in their beds. There was a man, they'd say, there was a man who didn't age. He didn't learn from his mistakes, and caused heartbreak for all of us.

_(equivalent trade)_  
"I don't like your new group of people," Edward said after repressing it for weeks, slamming his mug of beer down at dinner.

Hoenheim was too limited; he only made connections with other people, shadowy figures in hoods, to help himself. The father and son practiced equivalent trade still in relationships, but while Edward gave it in feelings, in thoughts, in love and friendship, Hoenheim only gave it in deeds and words. There's his problem, Edward thought. It was odd to understand his father, a man very old who should by now be able to distinguish potentially dangerous people from those who simply want to help.

"They will help us," Hoenheim said in his definitive voice.

The old man once created a Philosopher's Stone out of cages of screaming people, Edward remembered, and waves of fear and anger radiated through him. He had forgotten the sins of his father on this new world, which was truly a new start for both of them. The words of a love letter he seemed to have read eons ago flew into his mind; the letter was unbelievable, incredible, full of metaphors and references to feelings that Ed couldn't understand if he tried. Were the metaphors a lie? Had he said the same things to their mother? Were they equally true? Was Hoenheim true to anyone?

"I don't like them. I don't like their methods, I don't like their secrecy, and they remind me of the Amestrian government," he snarled.

"Do they," said Hoenheim in an even tone of voice. "The Amestrian government, while with its faults, provided for scientists."

"It was run by a homunculus." The words blurted out before he realized them, and Hoenheim had no reaction.

"You knew," Ed said and fought his old habit of slamming his (now not) automail hand down on the nearest surface in rage, "I don't understand how you could have possibly ever loved Mother."

"Well, I did," Hoenheim said, looking out of the window.

Edward left the room.

_(note)_  
You take your methods and I'll take mine. I'm leaving tomorrow by train; you can talk to me before then if you want. -Edward.

_(al)_  
Al, I won't lie and say I hate it here. (Edward wanted to believe in the transcendence of words, pure words, un-coded in alchemical references.) It's bearable, as much as things ever were. I don't understand our old man and I probably never will, but I can't deny that he's helped me with my research. He's not as good of a research partner as you were as a kid, though. (He wanted to believe that his words flew somehow through the Gate, punched through the little black creatures inside to another world, a country called Amestris, a town called Rizenpul, a brother called Alphonse Elric.) I'm going on a train tomorrow to see a man in Transylvania; I think I'm onto something here, they're called rockets and are great engines propelled by fuel. The old man doesn't want me to go, but his judgment is still less than stellar on many things so I ignore him. (Even if his journal cannot travel, he wants to send the words "wait for me" emblazoned like neon letters across the sky, so Al, human or not, will put down whatever he's doing and laugh and say "I will wait.") I know this is rather silly of me, Al, to think that you can read this, but in this world I must to have something to replace alchemy on my way back to the world I know and you.


End file.
